Life — December 3, 1903 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘\ While there is Life there's Hope.” vou. XLU DEC. 3, 1998. No. 1101 19 West Taiety-Finst St.. New Youe. Pavlished every Ta taste to fore! day. $3.00 a year in ad- ‘n countries i the Postal pouths from will be returned unless stamped and addressed Wo contribution accompanied by envelope. The illustrations in Live are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced. Prompt notification should be sent by sub- scribers of any change of address BEGINNING has been made in a good cause by the bringing of a lawsuit by two men from Orange County, New York, against an automobdilist who lives in Newark, New Jersey. The plain- tiffsaver that they were driving on the Tuxedo road, one day last June, when the defendant whizzed by in his auto- mobile, scaring their horses so that they ran away. Both men were thrown out of their wagon. One was hurt, the other lost his horses. They sue for ten thousand dollars and five thousand dollars respectively. Tosend an auto- mobile at high speed past a skittish horse on the highway is almost mur- derous. Punitive damages for such actions are desirable for the protection of the public. Of course, a wise person will use some discretion about the sort of horses he drives on roads infested with automobiles, but it is not incum- bent on drivers to restrict themselves to blind, aged and spiritless horses even in the automobile districts. It is incumbent on automobilists to use due care not to scare hors Almost any horse will be demoralized by having an automobile shoot by him at any such speed as twenty miles an hour, Auto- mobilists who imperil life by such LIFE conduct ought to be punished when caught, either by imprisonment or by compelling them to pay heavy damages. There are many such offenders, but few of them get caught, an stand having the Steel shares zo down, but it has been aggravating to read that the Steel bond skindicate was helped in the great work of skinning by the depression of the preferred shares, There was nocrimi- nal misrepresentation that we know of in the launching of the Steel Trust. Everybody knew that there was a lot of water in it, and every discerning person expected the shares to go down when business fell off. They have gone unexpectedly low, but the prop- erties still exist and are valuable. Philosophical investors who really own their holdings may be disappointed, but they have not been swindled, and there is no reason why they should not possess their souls with patience. But it has been sorely trying to such pa- tience to have the bond syndicate make money, while the shareholders we losing, and the report that the syndi- cate has ceased to operate is welcome. Syndica are not in season any more. They had their day, and those that ripened early enough were extremely profitable. But they don't fit into the days of stock market desolation except as mourners, and the Steel bond syndi- cate, while still apparently profitable, flouted the misery of the Steel losers and disgusted the public. I? is an embarrassment to us moral- ists who feel ashamed of what we may have to call “our Panama scan- dal”? to find Colombia so ill-supplied with deserts and moral rights in the matter. Is there anything better to say for her than that, having a good bone in her mouth, she dropped it to seize what she thought would prove a better one? ‘The dropped bone walked off and got away, to the surprise, ap- parently, of no one but Colombia, Her wrongs seem to consist chiefly in the loss of loot. That she should con- quer and reclaim Panama, take the isthmus away from the people of that State, and begin again to haggle over the price of ditching it, no considerate observer can desire. The suggestion that the ten million dollars which it was proposed to pay for the privilege of digging the canal should be paid to Colombia as the price of letting Panama go, is more acceptable. That wouldn't hurt anyone. Panama would get the canal, which is the main thing her heart is set upon, and if the ten millions went to pay Colombia’s debts—to which use it is said to have been consecrated —it would not be ill-spent. 38 @ OG) [HE country is facing two very serious problems. One is how to get the boll-weevil out of Texas. The other is how to induce the United States Senate to adopt rules which shall restrain members from holding up the Government. The boll-weevil is an objectionable little insect which resides in cotton bolls and blights them. It blighted about thirty million dollars worth of Texas cotton this season and hopes to do much better another year. It made cotton scarce and dear, and when it gets into Louisiana it will make the cotton crop shorter than evor. The Government is after it, bat it is as indifferent to governments as a South American republic, and much harder to deal with. The other evil—the matter of the privilege of contumacious Senators to block legislation by endless talk—is also very serious, and very absurd. Two or three Senators can kill any bill by talking it to death. Senator Tillman got forty-seven thousand dol- lars for his State last March by threatening to talk away the closing hours of Congress and compel an extra session. Senator Morgan’s exploits in the same line are familiar, This evil must be cured, but tho cure lies with the Senate itself, and the Senate does not like to take medicine. comicbooks.com